Odds & Ends

Soccer is definitely not a family game in Brazil. Police in the northern territory of Maranhao say that enraged spectators stormed the field at a soccer match, stoned the referee to death, quartered his body and mounted his head on a spike. The Public Safety Department said in a statement it all started when referee Otavio da Silva Catanhede Jordan, 20, expelled player Josenir dos Santos Abreu, 30, for a rules violation during an amateur soccer match at the Pius XII stadium. The two got into a fist fight over the ejection, which ended when Silva pulled out a knife and stabbed Abreu in the chest. Abreu died of his injuries on the way to the hospital. While Abreu was being rushed to the hospital, friends and relatives “rushed onto the field, stoned the referee to death and quartered his body.” Local news media reported that spectators also decapitated Silva and stuck his head on a stake in the middle of the field. Police have arrested one man in connection with the incident.

Dateline: Michigan

Metropolitan Detroit Police were called to an apartment complex in the suburb of Clawson when a neighbor called 911 after hearing “a repeated loud noise” followed by a woman screaming for her boyfriend to stop. The concerned neighbor reportedly “heard somebody yelling—a female yelling. ... She was possibly being hit, yelling, ‘Stop! No!’,” Clawson Police Chief Harry Anderson told WWJ Newsradio. When police arrived at the apartment complex, they determined that—instead of beating his girlfriend—the man in question was actually farting on her. “The female that was inside stated that her boyfriend had continued to pass gas, and she was yelling at him to stop,” Anderson told the radio station. Once officers discovered the source of the woman’s loud complaints, they “cleared the scene expeditiously” according to the official report. No charges were filed.

Dateline: New York

An American Airlines flight attendant is now suing the airline for unspecified damages after coworkers accused the Long Island woman of smuggling a rat in her underwear. Louann Giambattista, 55, has worked for American Airlines for 33 years. Last year allegations were made by her colleagues that she snuck a pet rat onto an international flight by hiding it in her underwear and pantyhose. In February of 2012, a pilot on a flight from London to Miami reported that Giambattista had “a bulge in [her] pocket” and saw “what he thought was a live pet” according to papers filed in Brooklyn’s federal court. Another flight attendant reported seeing Giambattista feeding a bread roll to a rat on the same trip. After the flight landed in Miami, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials failed to locate any rodents on Ms. Giambattista or her luggage. Giambattista says in her lawsuit that the accusations resulted in her being blacklisted by customs for more than a year and have contributed to “debilitating anxiety” and post-traumatic stress disorder. Giambattista’s lawyer, Stephen Morelli, told the New York Post, “Everybody has pets. She has pets in her home, not at work. She’s not a nut. They’re making her out to be a nut.” Morelli did admit that his client has “got a lot of different pets. She had the rat—it died.” Giambattista told the Post that claims she brought her pet rat on board an airplane are “absurd” and “patently false.”

Dateline: New York

A pioneering Bedford-Stuyvesant man fatally confirmed a long-standing urban myth when he urinated on the third rail of a subway track. The New York Post reports that 30-year-old skateboarder Matthew Zeno was electrocuted while whizzing on the train tracks at the Broadway station in Williamsburg. Zeno’s 26-year-old friend tried to rescue him, but was shocked himself. The pair were reportedly walking home from a bar at around 3:10 a.m. when the accident occurred. Both men were rushed to Woodhull Hospital, where police say Zeno died. The friend, unnamed in reports, was listed in stable condition.

Dateline: California

The popular Gold Striker roller coaster at Great America amusement park in Santa Clara was shut down earlier this month after neighbors complained that the screams of riders violated the decibel limit agreed upon in a settlement. Prudential Real Estate, which owns an office building adjacent to the Gold Striker, reportedly complained to park owners about the too-excited screams of coaster enthusiasts. The Gold Striker, considered Northern California’s tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster, was shut down for less than a week so that workers could install a sound-dampening tunnel around portions of the track. The ride was back in business in time for the 4th of July holiday.